Google’s Android Enterprise Recommended program now covers just under 40 devices

BlackBerry’s latest smartphone, the Key2, and Huawei’s latest tablets, the M5 8.4 and 10.8, are the latest Android devices to be added to Android Enterprise Recommended.

Launched in February, Android Enterprise Recommended is a program run by Google Cloud for validating devices from Google’s Android hardware partners to ensure they meet enterprise grade requirements for business use in organizations.

Some of these requirements include packing at least 2GB RAM, 32GB internal storage, at least 8 hours of battery life (which is about what the Communications Authority of Kenya also considers as the minimum), front and back cameras with at least 2-megapixels and 10-megapixels respectively, a processor that is has a clock speed of at least 1.4GHz and some apps (like the Google app, the Play Store and the basics: camera, settings, contacts, dialer, messaging and downloads).

It is the commitment that Google requires from device makers to back the current release of a device software-wise by making sure it arrives with the latest software and guaranteeing at least one upgrade to a future new version of Android in addition to issuing the monthly security updates within at least 90 days that is thought to have kept some device makers, like Samsung, at bay.

Samsung devices were conspicuously missing from the handful of devices that debuted the Android Enterprise Recommended program and now, almost 5 months later, with the program having already attracted 39 devices from various partners, the Korean device maker, who also happens to be the biggest maker of Android devices in the world, is still missing.